About Langdon Produce

In 1989, after servicing milking machines for several years, Ray Langdon through his contact with the dairy farmer, realised the Dairy Industry's need for both a complete 'quality' dairy feed, that provided value with a service to match.

Thus born our motto, Better Value, Better Quality, Better Service, Better Ring us.

Starting out selling mainly dairy produce and merchandise in Cororooke, at a time when the industry was moving toward bulk grain, our business quickly grew from one truck and a few silo's to requiring a second mill and grain storage facility in Lismore.

While currently handling in excess of 200,000tne of grain, we at Langdons' source our products from the biggest grain Companies in Australia to the local farmer with small tonnages, providing service and value to both suppliers and customers alike.

By working closely with Langdon Grain Logistics, our warehousing and transport division, we are able to provide the Western District a quality service with value that can only continue to grow and get better. We are also FeedSafe accredited, enabling us to focus on our quality control systems and practices.

Langdon Produce employs 30 people, and we are proud to play a major role in the development and the future of both towns and their local communities.

Langdon Produce is totally committed to servicing you in the best possible way. A dedicated team providing a responsive, friendly and professional service. We are able to provide nutritional advice and individual feed requirements, designed to suit your personal needs, backing it up with regular on farm service for complete customer satisfaction.

About Reid Stockfeeds

Reid Stockfeeds has grown from humble beginnings to be a major player in the stockfeed industry. While the core business has always been custom mixed bulk dairy feed, steady expansion into other animal industries has occurred.

It all began a couple of years after the debilitating 1982 drought, when Ian and Rösli’s mixed cropping and grazing property was burdened with debt, due to high interest rates and the drought. The couple was advised to sell the property, but felt there must have been some other opportunity to increase their cash flow.

Through investigation into the market the concept of using home grown grain to produce commercially formulated stockfeeds began. This coincided with the industry wide expansion of the dairy feed market, post the 1982 drought.

In the first year, 40 tonne of grain was rolled and sold, then in the second year it increased to 140 tonne and by the third year they were producing 203 tonne. This was largely home-grown grain and was delivered in the farms Ford 600 truck, towing an auger behind.

Early in its history the business engaged consulting animal nutritionist Gareth Lewis to formulate a range of high analysis feeds for the dairy industry. The consultancy package also included one-on-one advice to farmers, running farm field days and providing technical information for clients.

This customer focussed innovation, which was a new approach in the dairy feed industry, was largely responsible for the subsequent growth of the company. The technical dairy services department offering free nutritional advice has now grown to six consultants including Gareth Lewis as a permanent employee and manager.

By 1989, sales has surpassed 5000 tonne, by 1993 more than 10,000 tonne, with Reid Stockfeeds becoming a major buyer of local grains. During this period a number of mill upgrades and the installation of a weighbridge had taken place.

Fire destroyed half of the mill in 1996 which led to the decision to take a major step forward and develop a new mill. Custom-built machinery was imported from the USA and Denmark to improve the production line. A computerised batch control system was installed. This major investment meant that weekly production capacity increased from 900 tonnes to 2500 tonnes.

During the 1990’s the business expanded its markets by actively marketing in Gippsland as well the Goulburn & Murray Valleys. In early 1998, the opportunity presented itself for further significant expansion in Gippsland with the opportunity to purchase a long-established mill at Trafalgar. Reid Stockfeeds purchased V. Jean & Sons of Trafalgar and took over operations in July 1998. Since the purchase of the Trafalgar mill there have been some major upgrades including computerised batch control to the plant to enable increased production capacity. The annual tonnages produced in Trafalgar have more than doubled since the takeover.

Reid Stockfeeds purchased Goulburn Valley Stockfeeds in 2002 and has continued to grow. The business now has a fleet of ten modern stock feed delivery vehicles (with pneumatic conveying) and provides employment to 48 people.

In July 2007 Reid Stockfeeds bought fifty percent of Langdon Produce in the Western District. The joint venture is building a new mill at Cobden. The new mill will consolidate the manufacturing into one large site with the existing sites being decommissioned on completion of the new development.

The consolidation of Reid Stockfeeds across Victoria places it as the largest family owned manufacturer and supplier of dairy and intensive animal stockfeed in the state. Employing in excess of sixty people and manufacturing over 200,000 metric tonne of feed annually.

Reid Stockfeeds have been recognised for their business management being finalists in the Telstra and Victorian Government Small Business Awards 2002, won Business of the year Campaspe Shire 2003 and The Age / Dunn & Bradstreet Victorian Rural Service Business of the Year 2006.

For many years, the business has increased its focus on quality assurance and has been rewarded for its efforts attaining ISO 9001 certification and the first company in Australia to gain the Stock Feed Manufacturers Council of Australia (SFMCA) FeedSafe accreditation.

The company recognises the impact their operation has on customer’s commercial success and endeavour to ensure no customer ever runs out of feed. They aim to continue to provide quality assured products; provide security to their workforce and economic stimulus to the local communities.

“We want to maintain and improve our reputation as providing the best product and best customer service in the industry.”

About our New Cobden Mill

Milling Technology and Processes
The new Cobden Mill is state of the art technology in all aspects. From receival of raw commodities to delivery of finished feed, the process is aimed at matching World’s Best Practice and we are fully FeedSafe Accredited.

All deliveries to the Cobden Mill are weighed individually over the brand new weigh-bridge, with samples taken to ensure the highest quality of ingredients used by the plant. All samples are tested for quality parameters such as protein content, moisture, contaminants and screenings at the weigh bridge and regularly, samples are sent away to be laboratory tested and compared to our onsite sampling for accuracy. These ingredients are then unloaded into one of two intake sheds, grains and protein/concentrate products, and augered into storage silos.

Each grain mix produced is individually formulated, to precisely meet the requirements of the animals they are fed to. These rations are formulated by qualified Technical Services Staff, Laura Tweddle and Daniel Allen. These formulations are entered electronically into the mill’s batching computer. From initial order to final delivery, each diet is controlled by the electronic formula code
and can be traced exactly throughout the process.

Weighing of individual ingredients is controlled from the mill office computer and grains are first to be batched. These pass through the state of the art roller mills, before being mixed with any additives required as well as oil and molasses. From the out loading area, a farmer’s feed is loaded into one of 7 Langdon Produce trucks and delivered into silo on farm.

This Mill can manufacture 40 metric tonne per hour, with the capacity to produce over 150,000 tonnes of feed a year. The precision milling technology used in its design gives accuracy over 95% in measuring and mixing every ration produced.

Technical Advice Now Available
As part of Our ongoing commitment to providing not only quality feed, but excellent service to farmers across the south west, all Langdon Produce clients now have nutritional and feed budgeting advice available. This service can range from

• ration balancing and getting the most out of your herd throughout the year,
• managing herd health issues including prevention of metabolic and environmental disease
• Routine production assessment, setting individual production & Farm targets
• Short and Long term feed budgeting, to assist feed purchasing decisions throughout the year, to try and minimise a farm’s exposure to price fluctuations.

Daniel Allen, Technical Services & Sales, has over 10 years experience in the dairy industry, working in areas including farm management, Agronomy and mineral sales.

Owen Rees joined the Langdon Produce Sales & Technical Services team in December 2010 to support our customers to the west. He also has over ten years experience in cattle nutrition and lives on the family Beef & Sheep property near Hawkesdale.

Call our technical services team today for more information, or to arrange a visit.

We trust you will be happy with the improvements made to Langdon’s range. If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us on any of the below numbers